Re: Linux and GPLv2

[Måns Rullgård <mru@inprovide.com>]

Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:

>> > Those .h files were held to be not protected by copyright because no
>> > viable alternatives were available to interface with the system.
>
>> > It's hard to see how this reasoning would apply in a context where there
>> > is some viable alternative available to interface with the system.
>
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2005 at 04:15:57AM +0200, Måns Rullgård wrote:
>> Alternative to what?  There can be no alternative to the full set of
>> interfaces to the system.  Are you trying to argue, that several
>> interfaces exist, use of each one is protected due to the existence of
>> the others?
>
> For example: gcc provides a command line interface as an alternative to
> rebuilding gcc every time you need to compile a program.

Thanks for mentioning command lines.  Running a program from the
command line, usually involves passing it options.  These options are
(obviously) copies of strings from the actual program.  Can this
copying be a copyright violation?  IMHO, it is no different, in
principle, from using function names declared in a header file.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com